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Full-Text Articles in Law
Advisory Opinions And The Problem Of Legal Authority, Christian R. Burset
Advisory Opinions And The Problem Of Legal Authority, Christian R. Burset
Journal Articles
The prohibition against advisory opinions is fundamental to our understanding of federal judicial power, but we’ve misunderstood its origins. Discussions of the doctrine begin not with a constitutional text or even a court case, but a letter in which the Jay Court rejected President Washington’s request for legal advice. Courts and scholars have offered a variety of explanations for the Jay Court’s behavior. But they all depict the earliest Justices as responding to uniquely American concerns about advisory opinions.
This Article offers a different explanation. Drawing on previously untapped archival sources, it shows that judges throughout the anglophone world—not only …
State Courts And The Making Of Federal Common Law, Anthony J. Bellia
State Courts And The Making Of Federal Common Law, Anthony J. Bellia
Journal Articles
The authority of federal courts to make federal common law has been a controversial question for courts and scholars. Several scholars have propounded theories addressing primarily whether and when federal courts are justified in making federal common law. It is a little-noticed phenomenon that state courts, too, make federal common law. This Article brings to light the fact that state courts routinely make federal common law in as real a sense as federal courts make it. It further explains that theories that focus on whether the making of federal common law by federal courts is justified are inadequate to explain …